Q&A with Tara VanDerveer

After finding little information on Tara VanDerveer’s high school basketball career for a story I was working on, I found out why. She didn’t have a high school basketball career.

VanDerveer, who coached the 1996 U.S. Olympic women’s team to the gold medal and has won two NCAA titles during her 22 seasons as Stanford’s coach, reflected on her playing days and the frustrations that she encountered in simply trying to play the game in the pre-Title IX era.

Q: Did you play basketball in high school?

A: When I was in high school, there were no sports for girls. I tried out for cheerleading and didn’t make it. So, I played rec basketball. There was a grade school close to my house. I’d play with these old guys.

Then I went to Buffalo Seminary, which was a private girls school. They did have very very limited sports for girls. I played field hockey and we did have a basketball team. I think we might’ve played three games. We had a real small gym, but at least it was something. And at least I was around girls who were active.

Q: How active were you growing up?

A: I’m the oldest of five girls. My parents would take us to the ‘Y’ on weekends and swim and play racquetball and stuff like that. Honestly, I competed academically. I studied a lot. I learned board games and played chess, bridge, scrabble and things like that. But athletically, it was very limited.

Always, growing up, I loved to play everything. When you were little, it was OK. But as I got older, there were fewer and fewer girls. After a while, I was the only girl and it was all boys. Then they wouldn’t let me play because I was a girl. But I had the best basketball and if they wanted to use my ball, then I’d play.

Q: How good of a player were you?

A: Actually, in my ninth grade yearbook, before we moved (from Schenectady, N.Y., to Niagara Falls), the men’s basketball coach and gym teacher wrote: “To my best basketball player in the ninth grade, boy or girl.”

Honestly, it was painful, because I loved to play, but there were no teams for girls. They
had a seventh grade team for boys, an eighth grade team for boys, and freshman, j.v. and
varsity. But absolutely no sports for girls. They would have play dates.

Q: Could you play on the boys teams?

A: That was before my time. I had never happened before. I could’ve played for them. When I played, I played at their level. But obviously, they got bigger and quicker. But when I was in the seventh, eighth, and ninth grades, I could definitely play.

Q: What kind of school did you attend?

A: The Milne School (in Albany, N.Y., where she attended until midway through her sophomore year) was seventh through 12th. It was a campus school, an experimental school where students do their student teaching.

In my seventh grade yearbook, the best boy player wrote the weirdest thing. He wrote: “You will go to the Olympics in basketball some day.”

And there was no Olympic basketball for girls then. Everyone in the whole school knew I loved to play. I was always in the gym. If I couldn’t play, I was always watching.

That’s how the whole coaching thing was, watching. When I got to college, at Indiana, we had, like, a nine-game schedule. I watched Bobby Knight practice all the time in college.

In high school, it was really hard. We moved in the middle of the 10th grade. And for Christmas, they got me a basketball hoop, which we never had before. I’d always go to the neighbors. And if the neighbors didn’t want me, they’d park a car under the hoop. But when I was 15, my parents bought this hoop and I said, “You know, I’m too old for basketball.”

Actually, it was painful. I loved it, but it was almost like having a love-hate relationship. I loved to play. If I was in high school now, I’d probably flunk out of high school because I’d watch all the games on TV. Back in those days, Sunday, you’d see one game, the Knicks. There was no college basketball on or anything like that.

Q: Did you have a mentor at that time, anyone who kept you going?

A: No, everyone really tried to turn you off to it. My parents, when I was in the ninth grade, I was out shooting all the time, out playing all the time. By myself, or with boys, or whoever. And my parents would say, “Come in and do your algebra homework. Basketball is never going to take you anywhere.”

I sent my parents postcards from Russia, and China …

When I was a little kid, I’d be by myself, dribbling and shooting, and pretending I was playing in front of a big arena. It was like I could imagine it. But I don’t even know why I could imagine it. No way. There was nothing like that for women.

But when I was the Olympic coach, before the Olympic gold-medal game, I had some time to myself and I thought back to being a 10-year-old, a 12-year-old and saying, “This is what you were thinking of then. This is what you were imagining. And it’s real.”

I talked to a little 8-year-old and mentioned they play more games in camp than I ever did in college. And one little girl raised her hand and said, “Why?”

That’s why I love coaching so much, because I would have loved to have had the opportunity to play.

Q: Has that experience in some way enabled you to become the person you are?

A: I think it did. I think of the opportunities we have. I mean, a game on television, a packed arena, a shot at a national championship. My god.

When I was in college, we played in the AIAW national tournament. That was my sophomore year. And were playing in front of 5,000 people. We played two games in a day. We wore skirts, basically tunics. But a uniform. My sophomore year, we didn’t have a uniform.

You bought your own shoes, paid for your meals. Had four to a room. To ever imagine this, today, was beyond anyone’s wildest imagination.

Q: I take it you weren’t recruited to Indiana?

A: Not at all. My parents moved in the 10th grade, from basically Schenectady, N.Y., to Niagara Falls, N.Y. So, my first year in college, I went back to where I’d gone to middle school, at SUNY-Albany, the state university. I jumped center, I was the leading scorer, the leading rebounder, the leader turnover-er, the leading shot-blocker. But I was miserable because I wanted a different experience, I wanted a team experience.

So, I convinced four of my friends – I had a big car – to drive out to Illinois for the AIAW
national championships. I took a little pad and took notes on all the teams and said, Indiana’s where I want to go. I just liked how they played. And they had a lot of returners. And I transferred.

I loved it. I had a great experience. It was a lot of fun. We never played in the NCAAs. It was always the AIAW.

I took Coach Knight’s coaching class. I watched the boys practice every day. Wherever I’ve been, I’ve always enjoyed watching basketball. I loved the strategy of it. I would not like coaching myself, I’m a lazy defender, I’m not a very good shooter. I like to screen and I like to pass. I like to coach players that are shooters and post players, and that’s what we have on our team.

Dave Kiefer

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This brings back so many memories. I played bball in the first year of title 9, and the administration made it so difficult for the girls to actually play. We never got uniforms, just old t-shirts, and we had all sorts of rules to keep us from breaking a sweat. The coaches had less knowledge than the players.
Now I watch my daughter and her team and I am so proud of how far we’ve come. These girls are proud to be tall, big and athletic. they don’t want to just be the cheerleaders. They love lifting weights, and they consider themselves every bit the elite athletes that the boys always have. Thanks Tara, for your perseverence and leadership.

Paula B. Albert

I was surprised to see how, in many ways, your youthful experiences and dreams paralleled my own. My dad was a Univ. of Kansas prof. who took me, as a child, to all the K.U. home games. This was during the Phog. Allen era so I saw some great games and great players; one of whom was a heady little player named Dean Smith. I attended Stanford well before Title IX, but I like to tell my granddaughter that I played for Stanford and we beat Cal! In those days, my basketball P.E. class and those from other local universities would meet on a day each quarter to compete in basketball, field hockey, softball, etc. It was the only way we could represent the university in athletics! I am so proud of all of the women’s athletic teams at Stanford, especially basketball. BEAT CAL